16 artists who will make your year in 2016

Rewind a couple years and you'd be forgiven for thinking the word "Kablam" stood for little more than an onomatopoeic phrase from an Adam West-era Batman film, but come 2016 you should all know it refers to one of the most exciting DJs in the game. At its base level, the word's meaning remains the same, from 1960s superhero flicks to modern day DJs, denoting destruction and havoc, which is exactly what Sweden-born, Berlin-based artist Kajsa Blom is wreaking on the boundaries of club music. Innovation is everything to Kablam; she dislikes genre-categorisation (simply listing her genre as "no" on Facebook) and is a CDJ reformist, or whatever the opposite of a vinyl purist is, favouring digital decks for the increased capability to manipulate tracks and add a new dimension of inventiveness to her sets (go see her play for a next-level CDJ2000 demonstration). It's an approach that has already seen her make waves in 2015, roaring across England on Evian Christ's Trance Party tour and the rest of Europe, delivering a string of hard-hitting mixes. Her impact is certain to spread further when her first full release lands on Janus in the spring. PH

Listen to Kablam's The Fader mix here

Sometimes an unreleased track will sweep through clubs with such potency that the search for it sets the dance music community alight. Dancefloor recordings pile up as the internet ID crew rolls into life, firing off tweets and Facebook messages with the relentless rapidity of a pneumatic drill. It's almost unheard of now for tracks to reach the near-mythical level of mystique they once did, when desperately humming a melody to your heady mate is replaced with sharing crisp HD footage with the entire internet. Step forward Swiss-producer Laolu with the exception that proves the rule in 2015. His soaringly beautiful remix of Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra's 'Too Much Information' was the most hotly pursued tune of the year. As dancers worldwide were stunned by the euphoric production, clips appeared on YouTube with titles like "Âme remix?" while counters asserted it had to be a Dixon edit. Eventually Laolu was revealed as the artist responsible when release details arrived through Innervisions, accompanied by the aforementioned honchos declaring it their track of the year. Now with two of the most sought after co-signs in dance music under his belt, Laolu is sure to carry this momentum on into 2016 for a breakout year. He's got a vinyl-only EP of edits all set for release, while work on a remix for Rebirth records is well underway. PH

Listen to Laolu's 'A Number Of Choices' podcast here

"Oi mate, hear this one coming in? It's my new track" shouts Jacky, beaming with joy. He came down to Elrow in The Lab LDN and while it may seem completely random that De La Swing, the club night's Spanish resident, would be ending his set with Jacky's new track, it actually makes a lot of sense. Jacky had a pretty blinding 2015. He's been creating an outrageously big house sound that's littered with triple kick drums and rolling drops aimed at terraces and his most notable release came via Steve Lawler's Viva imprint. The 'Sinabit' EP got his name out there and subsequent productions got blasted by Skream, Dubfire, Pete Tong and none other than the daddy Carola at Amnesia for Music On. The track that ended one of the wildest Labs to date was taken from Jacky's forthcoming EP on Elrow and it's a sign of what's to come. Although he's longtime mates with wAFF and Patrick Topping, the boys from the Toon best watch out, because there's another Geordie bubbling in the wings. F

Watch Marco Carola play Jacky's remix of 'Get Down' at Music On, Amnesia here

18-year-old Toxe makes tracks that sound as if they were harvested from the cutting edge of underground club music. Her productions reflect the mechanic pump of the best Night Slugs workouts, the gleeful dancefloor-not-dancefloor experimentation of the Janus collective and the colourful energy of Staycore, the Swedish squad and label that she's part of and through which she released her debut EP, 'Muscle Memory', in November. The tracks on it are both unusual and club-ready: imagine machinegun drums and earthy low-end layered with ASMR-inducing sounds and melodic riffs that sound like stalactites falling from the roof of a cave. It's scorching dance music of the like that's never quite been heard before and, for now, you'll have to relish the tracks on 'Muscle Memory' as Toxe puts a pause on production in order to finish studying. We're told she graduates in the summer so that's when the Gothenberg artist will begin to set sparks flying on the regular. SW

Listen to Toxe's mix for The Astral Plane